13 Sam
My eyes slowly opened to find a beam of orange light shining right at my pupils from a crack in the roof. I squinted and turned my head to find that I was burning hot, swathed in Saleuk’s jacket and covered in sweat. Phesah was humid and warm so as soon as I was able to sit up, I threw the jacket off. Or peeled it off, more like. I felt disgusting and sticky and I smelled. Embarrassment washed through me until I realized Saleuk wasn’t in the room.
Next to me was the canteen and I quickly chugged a dozen mouthfuls of the cool water. I was parched and my stomach felt hollow, but the water helped. My hand, which that damn creature jabbed, was wrapped in clean bandages and was feeling much better than it had last time I was awake.
A soothing heat reached my cheeks when I thought of Saleuk carefully tending to my hand while I was out cold. Despite him being the most annoying valerian I had ever interacted with, the thought made the corner of my mouth lift ever so slightly. There weren’t a lot of people in my life who had ever even tried to take care of me. I almost didn’t know how to take it, but at the very least, I wanted to thank him.
Hot and slick with sweat, I unzipped my suit for the first time since we landed and shrugged it off my shoulders. Underneath, I wore only a black cotton tank top and it was soaked and stuck to my skin. The breeze felt wonderful once I was exposed to it.
Tying the sleeves of my suit around my hips, I ventured out into the sunlight. The lava-like shades of the dwarf star’s illumination made everything look washed in fire, especially since the clouds were thinner that day.
Outside, I could hear the river just ahead. I’d explored the grounds a bit, but not nearly enough to get a clear lay of the land considering when we arrived, Saleuk was unconscious and I was a dizzy wreck. Now, in the light of day with my strength returning, I could see the woods and a valley that stretched out toward tall mountain peaks in the distance. And in the valley, I saw a large body of water. A lake. It looked so damn inviting with my skin as hot as it was, but my first order of business was to find Saleuk. I wanted to thank him and also confirm that I wasn’t alone, so I started my search, canteen in hand.
Heading toward the river, I saw a pile of fruit on the ground along with a roll of fabric that looked like a small blanket or a towel. I passed the supplies and continued to the water, ducking under some low vines to come to the bank.
My whole body froze when I saw him.
Saleuk was hip-deep in the stream, naked and with his back turned. The ground was soft and the river made a constant ambient noise so when he didn’t turn around, I assumed he didn’t hear me. The best thing to do was leave and give him privacy, but my feet wouldn’t move. Instead, I stood there stupidly staring at the planes of his muscular form. His skin was a shade of pale blue as he splashed himself with water and ran his hands down the lengths of his strong arms. His black braid had been unwoven and the filaments were loose and hanging so the tips just brushed the water. I followed it down his spine to where the very top of his taut ass was peaking above the ripples.
I swallowed, consumed by a wave of heat that made my mouth go dry. I ogled at every movement he made as he bathed until I felt my grip go lax on the canteen. The metal bottle slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground, prompting Saleuk to turn.
When he caught me standing there, I was like a deer in headlights. My eyes shot wide and I straightened, unable to form words. From the front, he looked even more delicious. His abs were cut and rippling. His waist tapered dramatically and made his shoulders look broad and strong. And that damn look on his face. As the smirk formed and that little hint of a fang appeared, I was completely screwed.
“Shit,” I said aloud. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were… I should… fuck.”
I bent to pick up the canteen and fumbled, accidentally tossing it into the water. Saleuk reached out and grabbed it before it drifted away and chuckled. He chuckled, the bastard. My cheeks were enflamed again with embarrassment and when he tossed the canteen back at me, I caught it and pressed my lips together to conceal the sassy remark fighting to get free.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I forced out, turning to leave.
“Sam,” he called after me.
I went rigid and glanced back at him, waiting for him to make fun of me.
“Pass me the cloth?”
“The cloth?” I blinked, remembering the rolled towel next to the fruit.
“Yes. Or, I could get it myself like I’d originally planned.”
He started walking to the bank and I backstepped.
“No! No, it’s fine.” I rushed over to the rolled towel and swiftly threw it toward the bank before speedwalking into the building. “Shit,” I hissed. “What the hell?”
Every part of my body tingled with awareness. Probably because I was having some weird reaction to the moon’s environment. Or maybe I had a fever. Something was definitely wrong. It had to be because the other reason my body might be on fire would be that I had the hots for Saleuk.
Hell, maybe I did. But wouldn’t anyone have the hots for a guy that saved their life? Especially one with a body like his.
“It’s white knight syndrome,” I muttered, pacing around the room. “That’s a thing, right?”
“Talking to yourself?” his voice said. I whipped myself around to see him leaning in the doorway. He was wearing the pants portion of his suit, but his top was bare and still glistening with water. “Kind of early for that, isn’t it? I thought it took at least a couple weeks for a human to go mad in their solitude.”
“I’m not going mad,” I defended. “People can talk to themselves and not be crazy. It’s called thinking out loud.”
Saleuk moved further into the room, the damp towel draped over one shoulder. In his hand was the small pile of fruit I’d seen outside. His long hair was still loose and sticking to his wet back and shoulders as he hoisted his pack onto a table near the back wall and dropped the fruit inside. He held onto one, though, and when he was finished, he slung the pack onto his back and moved toward me. He stopped barely a step away and held up the little morsel.
“Eat,” he said. “You’re still weak.”
Slowly, I raised my hand and gripped the fruit between my fingers. Our hands brushed as I did and for some reason, that soft little meeting of skin zapped through me like a tiny bolt of electricity that headed straight for… places. My muscles tensed and I pulled the fruit away, clearing my throat as I slipped it into my mouth. Chewing, I gradually lifted my gaze to meet his, suddenly feeling shy.
“Thanks,” I said, swallowing the mouthful of sweet kalaha.
He lingered there a moment, his gaze fastened to mine until my tongue swept across my lips. Then his eyes were on my mouth and another jolt of heat rushed south.
Curses were blaring in my head and I wondered if Saleuk could hear how hard my heart was beating. Valerians could sense things like that. Or so I heard.
“You seemed a little nervous out there,” he brought up. “Seeing me naked.”
“Not nervous. I’ve seen plenty of naked men. I’m very experienced with that. I mean… you’re just different.”
His mouth quirked like that was some kind of compliment.
“There are other buildings here,” he said. “You chose the worst one.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I should have shopped around more while I was dragging your two-hundred-and-fifty-pound body across an entire forest at night.”
He laughed and I wanted to punch him in the face for about two seconds before my eyes settled on his smile. His incredibly handsome, alien smile.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I huffed, turning to face away from him.
He just laughed again and walked past me, swiping my pack on his way out. I had no choice but to follow him further into the ruins. When we turned the corner around a wall that had been completely reshaped by vines and roots, I saw another building, mostly intact, across a small courtyard. We walked in through a partly open sliding door and inside what looked like a lobby of some kind I saw a round, fountain-like structure with a giant tree growing through the middle. The tree had broken a big hole in the roof and moss, vines, and fungus plates all took up the space like the building was just a minor inconvenience to nature.
On the left side of the lobby was a table on which a bunch of old electrical equipment and parts were already spread out and organized like Saleuk had already combed the place for supplies. I followed him through the lobby to a metal ramp that wound like a giant spiral staircase and led to a second floor.
“There’s a room here,” he pointed toward a narrow doorway. “And a room here.” He pointed at another. “There are several more, but these were the most intact.”
“How long do you think we’ll be here?”
“I told them to come get us as soon as they got all the humans processed. It shouldn’t be long. They’re probably sending someone now. It wouldn’t hurt to have a working commlink, though.”
Relief washed through me as I peered into one of the rooms. It wasn’t much. It might have been at one point, but now it was a moderate space with no furniture, a bed with no sheets or mattress, and a giant, tinted mirror covering one whole side. There was a shower compartment, but I could see from the doorway that the pipes were eroded and cracked.
“Here,” Saleuk said, handing me my pack. “If you want to wash up, you’ll have to do it in the river. There’s no running water.”
“Yeah, I got that.” I took my pack and headed into the room, tossing it on the naked bed frame. “I’ve slept in worse places,” I said to myself.
“Have you?”
I spun to face him, a little surprised he heard me. “Well, yeah. Last night,” I lied.
Or when I was living on the streets sleeping behind the burger joint. Or when I nearly ODed in a park when temperatures were nearly freezing.
The room was a long way from plenty of shitty places I’d had to hole up in in the past. At least there were walls.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the mirrored wall.
“Was a digital screen. There’s no power in this place anymore, but when there was, these screens would display whatever the workers wanted. Most of them chose to look at Valer. We valerians are easily homesick. Or, at least we were before we were forced off multiple worlds. Now none of us really stay in one place.”
“Humans get homesick. But we’ve only got the one planet.”
“Are you homesick?”
“No,” I scoffed. “You have to have a home to be homesick.”
There was a stretch of silence. Silence made me uncomfortable. It made me feel like the person I was with was thinking about me and when people thought about me, they usually figured out how disappointing I was.
“So what’s all the stuff on the table down there?”
“Parts. Devices I think I can fix.”
“Like what?”
“Come on. I’ll show you.”
I followed Saleuk down into the lobby again where the table was. Whatever he’d found didn’t look like anything useful to me, but I wasn’t an engineer nor was I a valerian that understood valerian toys.
“I found cloth, some old first aid equipment, a water filtration device that I think I can get working pretty easily, and this.”
He tossed me a little cuff and I looked at it with a raised brow.
“Thanks?”
“It’s a navigator. It still works. It’s ancient, but those things were built to last. I thought you might like it.”
I clipped the metal cuff on my wrist and watched a little screen light up on the face. The image showed a 3D map of the terrain around us in a radius that I assumed was a roshim, which equaled about one and a half miles.
“This is really cool. Thank you. Although, I don’t know how much exploring I want to do after the critters I’ve seen.”
“The worst things come out at night. If we stay inside during the eclipse, we should be alright.”
I nodded, leaning forward on the table to look at all the gadgets spread out before me as if staring would make me understand it all.
“What’s that?” I pointed at a pair of small round coins.
“Those are comms devices. Old ones. I found the hub so I’m going to see if I can use the parts to fix my commlink. The kilor damaged it when it tossed me into the tree.”
“These are the kinds of things you do if you think we’ll be here for a while, Saleuk.”
“No, these are things I do to stay distracted and busy.”
I glanced up at him with a smirk. “Why do you need to stay distracted? You scared?”
I expected him to shoot back at me with some kind of taunting rebuttal, but instead, there was a hint of struggle in the deep, galactic colors of his eyes.
“Yes,” he said softly.
The smirk fell from my face. That look he was giving me sank so deep it hurt. In my bones, I knew he wasn’t talking about being stranded, either. He was talking about something else and somehow it made my heart thrum.
“I think I’ll wash up. I really don’t think I can help with any of this stuff.”
Saleuk nodded and pulled up a metal chair, sitting himself down to focus on his little projects.
On my way out, I swiped one of the bundled cloths to use as a towel. My skin was so hot when I left the building that I felt feverish all over again. I had to be getting sick and the thought worried me. All I ever was was sick around Saleuk. It was infuriating.
At the river, I ducked behind some foliage and stripped out of my shoes, my flight suit, and the cotton leggings and shirt I was wearing underneath. I took my underwear and bra with me into the water, scrubbing days' worth of sweat and grime from the fibers. Then I used my shirt and leggings to scrub my body, giving them a moderate wash, too. My flight suit was designed to wick water and sweat so I hoped by just hanging it out to let the sun’s rays sanitize it, it would be fine.
Once I was done, the cool water had done a lot to soothe the ache I was feeling. It was a strange ache. One I was unfamiliar with, but it was strongest around Saleuk so I took my time wringing out my wet clothes and finger combing my hair. It would take ages for everything to dry in that humidity, but I had a towel at least. I wrapped the big cloth around me, thankful it covered all the important bits. In fact, it was thin enough and large enough that I could wrap the ends cris-crossed around my neck like a halter. I was actually pretty proud of myself for figuring that out as I waltzed back toward the building with all my newly washed clothes.
Right outside the door, I hung everything on a low piece of thin piping to let it dry. As much as it was able in that climate, anyway.
Barefoot, I padded into the building to see Saleuk hard at work on one of his little projects. When he heard my quiet steps, he looked up, his expression instantly changing. His eyes roamed over me like I’d just strutted in naked and it made me feel like I wasn’t wearing anything.
“What?” I said, crossing my arms over myself.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I just… you’re just…”
“Look, you’re walking around without a shirt. It’s hot here and my clothes need to dry.”
“Of course. I just meant...” He swallowed his words. “Nothing. You should be comfortable.”
“If it really makes you uncomfortable—”
“It doesn’t.”
…I doubted that.